Forward Thinking
by Rhearenee
Summary: Time travel. Blank period. The means Sakura would go to protect Sasuke, better his life has no bounds, yet somewhere along the way, she wonders if he's worth it. Faced with his sins of the future Madara has a choice - listen to the pink-haired kunoichi or follow through with the plans he had already made.
1. Turning The Clock

_Yep, yep, I should be updating my ongoing stories, but here I am posting a new one. In my defence this is one of my oldest planned stories, that I intended to write a lot sooner, but for some reason didn't._

 _Now this will obviously be a time travel story, except I wanted to do it differently. I'm tired of all the time travel stories where Sakura goes to the past, to the point of being annoyed, possibly because if I want some MadaSaku that's the usual plot to it. I'm just disappointed that no one has done it the other way around. It's an untapped pool of ideas, so I decided to take the initiative and write something._

 _Anyway, I also wanted to mention that the song Forward Thinking by Marcus Warner was some of the inspiration for this. It's a beautiful song and I highly recommend to give it a try._

* * *

The birds were chirping which would have been a pleasant sound any other day, now it sounded like an annoying chorus of screeches. The wind was warm but strong, occasionally blowing his hair in his face more so than it already was or worse – in his mouth. The forest around Konoha was a serene place, yet today he was hard-pressed to find it as such.

Needless to say, Madara Uchiha was irritated. It didn't happen often, but whenever Tobirama Senju weeded himself into things he should stay out of, it pushed him over the edge.

Tobirama talked Hashirama out of bringing him along for a meeting with a potential investor for the hospital they were planning to build (Hashirama's wood release could create only so much). Not to mention that the Hyuuga were potentially planning to join their slowly blooming village as well. As usual, he was supposed to meet with the Hyuuga elder along with Hashirama and discuss the details, but somehow the little weed Tobirama (most probably Tobirama, since no one else could influence Hashirama so much) changed Hashirama's mind and prohibited him from joining.

Okay, fine. He saw no reason to do so, but he will get back at the little eyesore later.

Instead of staying around the Tower and anxiously waiting for the results (He had other things to take care of as well, but he knew well enough that attending to them in a pissy mood won't solve the problems), he had decided to take a stroll outside the village to cool off. It wasn't working very well. His mind kept circling back to the conversation he had with Hashirama and the satisfied glint in Tobirama's eye at the news.

He and Hashirama had been working on building a proper village for a year now and never before had he been denied access to a meeting or any other discussion that involved village policies. After all, he held as much power as Hashirama in the village. They were yet to declare who would be Hokage – the title they had decided to give the leader of the village. It grated him that Tobirama always got in the way and kept questioning the Uchiha till to this day. He had taken Hashirama's advice and tried to set aside their past, but it felt like the little weed strived on bringing it back up any chance he got and poke him in the face with it.

Madara stopped for a moment and cast a glance behind him, having felt a sudden spike of chakra. Despite their village being a safe place, the outside world was still full of dangerous shinobi and with him being a leader of a powerful clan, many were out for his head. In his haste out of the village, he had foregone his battle armour and weapons. It shouldn't pose any problems in his capability of taking out a threat if there was one, though.

The chakra spike disappeared as soon as it came. Nothing of significance happened after that. He picked back up his pace and left it alone unless the unknown shinobi foolishly decided to attack him.

The little distraction didn't stop his spiralling thoughts, though and he questioned his importance in the village and what would have Izuna said if he had seen what had happened to him. And with thoughts of Izuna coming to his mind his mood took a full nose dive.

Another sudden spike of chakra halted his thoughts.

The impact came from nowhere, sending him falling to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Grunting he gathered his bearings. Shameful to admit, but he was shocked, something had managed to catch him off guard. The cause for his fall was just a few meters behind him, laying on the ground in a person-shaped lump.

Another six chakra signatures were heading his way. Those also had appeared out of nowhere. He wasn't losing his touch, was he? Even when suppressing chakra people were detectable if you were a good enough sensor.

Shaking off the dirt from his clothes, he got back on his feet and waited for the shinobi behind the chakra signatures appear. Something was off here, he just couldn't quite make out what.

Six shinobi reared their heads through the leaves, jumping to the ground. A couple of them halted in their movements as soon as they noticed him, one even shivered. Though, a lanky man with odd armour on his body and a hitai-ate with a scratch across it, stepped forward, obviously the leader.

"Give us the girl! We have no business with you." He pointed a gloved hand towards the person-shaped lump.

Madara spared a glance behind him to conclude that indeed the lump was a girl with pink hair. For such a small girl she had caused quite the impact, he was sure to have bruises from it.

One of the shinobi moved to stand next to the lanky man. He pulled on the leader's sleeve, lip trembling in fear. "Yuu, we should leave this alone. You don't want to mess-"

Yuu snapped his hand away from the smaller lackeys grasp with a growl. "I don't care. She has a large bounty on her head and I need the money. For all we know this might be a genjutsu."

Others agreed with the smaller lackey, voicing their concerns to the chagrin of the leader.

Madara curiously observed the odd situation. The men appeared to know him or at least cower at the strength of his chakra signature, which he hadn't bothered to hide, and the shinobi were wearing cheap-looking armour. This shouldn't even pose a challenge to him, yet he was itching to do something other than standing around.

"Are we going to fight or what?" The sound of his voice ceased the arguing between the six men.

All of them at once turned their attention back to him, hesitating.

Madara suppressed a sigh. This was going to be more of a hassle than anything enjoyable.

Yuu dismissed everything his comrades told him and scowled. "I don't care who you are, you're supposed to be dead anyway. For all I know you could just be a distraction set up by the girl." He pulled out a short katana from a sheath and positioned it forward. With a battle cry, he charged.

Xxx

Sakura's vision swam when she came to. Had she finally collapsed of chakra depletion? Though that wouldn't explain why she felt like she had collided with a tree. Maybe one of the missing-nin caught her with some weapon-making her stumble and hit a tree? She didn't know. She didn't even know if the missing-nin were still on her trail.

She had planned to run close enough to the wall of the village, alert some of the guards and hopefully chase the bounty hunters away. It was embarrassing to admit, but with her chakra as low as it was she had no chance in taking out four fully adept shinobi without killing herself in the process.

Her medical mission in Kusa had taken a lot out of her. She had wanted to get back home as soon as possible, mind preoccupied with the unfinished projects she had started. The attack on her had been an ambush that she was not prepared to deal with at all, thus leaving her running like a headless chicken with the last wisps of her strength.

Among the wind and far off chirping birds she heard voices and possible sounds of a rustle. Were those the missing-nin fighting?

She raised herself in a sitting position and rubbed her eyes. Her vision was blurry, she could barely make out five figures in the distance, moving around. Vaguely she could recognize four of the moving figures as the missing-nin that had been pursuing her. The fifth figure was moving around too swiftly for her muddled senses to see it properly.

Her surroundings were familiar, though. She still was in the forest, not too far from the wall of Konoha.

Sakura assessed her injuries, concluding that all she had were some bruises from her crash with what she guessed was a tree.

A crash from the brawling shinobi caught her attention. They had moved closer to her position, enough so that she could make out that one of them had long raven hair and dark clothing. The long-haired one had something in his hand, something that was sharp enough to slit a throat of one of the attacking shinobi.

Sakura crawled closer to a tree. Her mind was foggy and her muscles screamed for rest. Latching onto the bark, she used it to help her stand up. A thump nearby had her and turning her head towards the sound. The mystery nin had downed her pursuers, the last being hit at the back of the head with a kunai while running.

She blinked, trying to clear her vision. What was even going on?

The long-haired shinobi was coming her way, his features gradually becoming clearer.

Her breath hitched. This couldn't be possible. There's just no way. She won't ever forget that face, but it just was not possible. This wasn't fucking possible. Yet she froze, dread running all through her body.

Uchiha Madara.

It _was_ him, looking as alive as any other human being. A bloody kunai was in his hand, a kunai that had struck all of the men on the ground dead. She was next, wasn't she?

No! This can't be real, she won't accept it. It has to be a genjutsu! Sakura formed a seal and shouted _Kai_ two times.

Nothing happened.

Sakura whimpered.

Madara stopped in front of her, expression blank.

Righting herself against the tree, she summoned what little chakra she had left. If she was going to die, she's going to die fighting. She'll be damned if she didn't try her hardest against this bastard.

She waited for an attack, nerves and body tense.

"This isn't a genjutsu, kunoichi."

She flinched at his voice. It was just as chilling as it had been on the battlefield. She avoided looking at his face from the fear of the Sharingan. His presence only brought back up bad memories. People dying. Screams. Maniacal laughter. A shiver ran down her spine.

She must be dreaming. This couldn't be possible. Uchiha Madara had died on the last day of the war. She saw it with her own eyes. He had accepted defeat and death. He had no reason to come back.

"Where did you get that?"

Sakura winced and snapped her head up at his harsh, demanding tone. She had no clue what he was talking about. She turned her sight away from his pointed glare, realizing her mistake. Her confidence was wavering, fear winning out.

"Your hitai-ate, where did you get it?" he clarified, coming closer.

Her eyes drew to the kunai in his hand. Licking her chapped lips, she exhaled. Out of all the things she expected from him this was the last. She dug her nails deeper in the rough bark of the tree. Is she hallucinating? This made no sense. There had been cases where shinobi had seen distorted images while dry on chakra, though she hadn't heard of a case so vivid as hers.

She righted herself. "Every Konoha shinobi gets one." Her voice came out in a gravelly rasp, throat dry from her run.

The air was thick with tension. His gaze was smouldering. Sakura swallowed thickly, keeping her eyes locked on to the forest behind him. The lumps of bodies lying bleeding on the forest ground caught her attention. He had killed all of them. Why had he done that? Why isn't he killing her?

"I know all of the clans that reside within Konoha and none of them have pink hair. None of them are also in possession of a Konoha hitai-ate, which hasn't been put out in distribution yet."

Sakura didn't know how to answer his accusations. When he raised the kunai, killing intent rolling off him in waves, she spluttered the first thing that came to mind. "Don't you remember me?" He paused and Sakura took that as her chance to confuse him further with her mindless babbling. "I mean, you probably don't, since I was just a part of the mass of people below you, Sasuke-kun and Naruto took the front line. Although, I'm kind of confused at your goal here, questioning things you already know. Is that a new tac-"

"Shut up!"

She flinched, sealing her mouth shut. She kept her eyes pinned on his gloved hand and the blood that was drying on the kunai.

Madara was quiet for a while.

The silence was eating her up, unnerving her further. She caved and angled her head up. The killing intent was still there, though he wasn't as expressionless any more. He was looking somewhere past her, unmoving.

She inhaled sharply. He was looking towards Konoha. She had no idea what his reasons for coming back were and what he was planning, however, she wasn't going to allow for him to execute those plans easily. Konoha and the rest of the shinobi world had already suffered enough.

Releasing the tree with a huff she stood in his line of sight, face set in determination. She was quivering from exhaustion and fear, but that wasn't going to stop her from protecting her loved ones. If there was something she could do to stop this monster then she will do it.

His dark gaze connected with hers.

Sakura bit down the lump that formed in her throat. She wanted to feel confident, she wanted to take him down by herself, though she knew that she couldn't. She was too exhausted to fight him. Not that fighting him would have helped, he was way too powerful for her to match him.

Madara disregarded her, sidestepping he dazedly walked towards Konoha.

Sakura panicked and ran after him, nearly tripping on a tree branch on the way. She wasn't thinking when she latched onto his wrist, stopping him in his tracks. He set his sights on her again. Sakura recoiled, letting go.

"What is going on?"

Confused she looked up at him. It wasn't visible at first, but Madara was just as perplexed as her. She licked her dry lips and tried to swallow the taste of dirt from her mouth. "Care to explain?"

He tilted his head, looking down on her.

Sakura fought back the urge to shrink away.

He ignored her and continued walking towards the village wall.

"Crap!" She ran after him, tripping and almost face-planting on the ground. Her muscles screamed in protest at the sudden movement.

He didn't seem to be very talkative, but she didn't need to hear anything to know that him going to the village was bad news.

He was moving too fast for her to catch up to him. For a moment she even lost him among the leaves. When the top of the village wall came into her sight she saw him again, standing in the trees. She didn't know why he stopped, though she wasn't going to question it.

She hoped that any guards wouldn't come this way. The Uchiha didn't seem to be overly hostile, confused more like it, so she didn't want to set any alarms until she had this figured out. Something wasn't right, he was acting differently and hadn't attacked her.

She latched onto him just as he moved forward, forming a hand seal. For a second everything flashed before her eyes, colours and sounds almost mixing into one. Next thing she knew she was stumbling into Madara on the other side of the wall.

Once he stepped aside, she gracelessly fell on the ground. He scoffed.

Sakura groaned, trying to gather her bearings and balance. The taste of dirt was back in her mouth, grains of sand scraped against her teeth. She spit out the sand from her mouth and stood up on wobbly legs. Rubbing her eyes clean from dirt, she concluded that she indeed was on the other side of the wall, in an alleyway between apartment buildings. The luck of that.

"I'll repeat my question. What's going on? Everything is different."

Her head snapped up, surprised that Madara had waited around for her to clean herself up. At least he wasn't making a ruckus or running off to god knows where.

"Could you be more specific?" She had no idea what he was referring to. Everything looked the same. Shouldn't he know what's going on? He showed up here out of the blue...and he's looking at her like she's the invader here.

"Why are you so adamant about me entering my village...well, what used to be my village?" He cast an uncertain glance around the dark alleyway and out towards the street. Surprisingly enough no one had noticed anything.

Sakura spluttered. "Are you serious? Your village? You abandoned Konoha, you attacked it, you started the fourth war and you're asking me why I don't want you here! Obviously, I don't want you anywhere near the village. Do you even know how many people have suffered because of you? How many children still have nightmares from the war? How people are still trying to settle back into normalcy after the war? Of course, you don't because all you ever did is care for yourself and your stupid ideas." She panted, voice raw and ran a hand down her face, frustrated.

"You're speaking as if you know me, accusing me of things that have never happened."

She raised her head at his incredulous tone and glared. "Are you daft or are you pretending?"

He raised the kunai in his hand and took a sharp step towards her, face set in stone.

Sakura continued, "You're Uchiha Madara, one of the founders of Konoha and also the first missing-nin from Konoha, initiator of the fourth shinobi world war and an asshole with a God complex. Should I go on?"

He didn't lower the kunai and for a moment it looked like he was going to attack her. He ran his eyes over their surroundings, focusing more on the few bypassing people in the distance that still had some business to do this late evening.

Sakura could only wait, anger running through her veins. There's so much more she wanted to yell at him, so much more she wanted to do. Just fuck everything and lay out her anger for what he has done to the world.

"We seem to have very different information."

When he finally spoke it broke her out of her fuming. "What?"

He set his sights back to her, jaw set, the kunai by his side. "I can't ignore what's in front of me. You possessing information and items that are yet not available, the different look of the village and people….could only mean that...this is a different time…"

"What?" she repeated her question only this time louder and a lot more incredulously. That was a serious leap in logic there. "A different time?" She blinked a few times, taking in his visage. Well, he was wearing shinobi clothes that were part of the Uchiha garb quite a while ago, but that didn't mean anything if it was him. In the fourth war, he was wearing old armour as well. "Do you mean to insinuate time travel?"

"Possibly. I'm certainly not aware who you are and what's your status in the village while you seem to know more about me than I do, and I know for a fact that this isn't a genjutsu."

Her fight left her, arms unceremoniously falling to her sides. Was it true? Was this Madara really from the past? She couldn't tell. He was different from how she remembered him, even his chakra signature was different, but did it mean anything?

Two chakra signatures were nearing their location, cutting off her thought process. ANBU guards. Fuck. What should she do? Her breaths laboured. _Fuckfuckfuck…_ She should tell Kakashi about this, but she can't leave Madara unattended. The possibility of someone seeing him and causing a panic in the village was something she wanted to avoid. She didn't believe him with the whole time travel thing either.

Sakura shook her hands in front of her, trying to get herself rid of the anxiety, ignoring Madara's odd stare in turn. "Okay, I believe you, but you're going have to trust me."

"Why?"

The ANBU guards were closing in. She didn't rule out the possibility that they could feel their chakra signatures, something neither of them were hiding. She could just thank whatever gods there were that Madara's signature was different from how it was during the fourth war.

"I'll explain later, but for now can you do a henge?"

He tilted his head, judging her with his stare.

"Please? I promise that it'll be only for a short time."

Madara sighed, closing his eyes. He tucked away his kunai in a weapons pouch. The handsigns he went through were quick, she barely managed to catch the two additional genjutsu he used atop the henge.

Sakura couldn't shake off the bizarreness of this. Her helping Uchiha Madara and him actually listening to her? She never thought that a day like that would come. Heck, just twenty minutes ago she believed him to be dead and done for. This must be some kind of insane hallucination that her tired mind conjured. It just has to be.

With a puff of smoke, the man in front of her looked nothing like Madara. She spared a short glance towards his changed appearance, focusing more on the approaching guards. Without thinking, she latched on to his wrist. "C'mon. We need to get out of here before they see us."

Madara yanked his hand back, making her release her hold and nearly fall on the ground. "Watch what you do, kunoichi. I may cooperate with you for now, but that might change in the foreseeable future." He spared her a dry glare and took the lead.

Right. She does not have her monstrous strength due to her exhaustion. Silly of her to think that the mighty Uchiha Madara would follow her anyway.

Sakura cursed and followed him out on the street, trying not to drag her feet. She should have known better than to think that this would go as smoothly as she'd imagined it.

She caught up to his fast pace with a huff. The few people around them paid no mind to her and Madara, too involved in their activities. Sakura didn't ask where he was going, observing his movements for now. Gradually the buildings were becoming more and more familiar. She knew this path. She nearly tripped. The Hokage Tower – Madara was going straight for it.

Chewing on her lip, she wrung her hands. This was good. If he was going straight for Kakashi then she won't have to try and figure out a way how to tell about this problem if the problem strolled right into his office. Right? Unless the problem decided to create other problems, then she was fucked, Konoha was fucked. Her head reeled from all of the possibilities.

After five minutes he stopped, just two blocks away from the Tower. She followed his line of sight. He was eyeballing the Hokage Mountain.

Sakura gripped the edges of her dress, observing the Uchiha. If he was from the past, which was starting to look like it was true, then he didn't know who had acquired the title of Hokage. She didn't know from how far back he was, but guessing from his look it might be before the first Hokage was announced. She half expected some kind of attack, lash out from how tense he was.

He suddenly turned around and walked back from where they came.

Baffled she stared at his retreating back. Snapping out of it, she ran to catch up before she lost him in the crowd. With his different appearance, she'd lose him fast, although the long blonde hair he'd donned with the henge was kind of eye-catching.

"Where are you going?" she dared to ask when he was within hearing range.

Blazing blue eyes met hers. "Back to the forest."

"Why?"

He didn't deign that with an answer.

Sakura huffed. Her feet were sore and it took everything in her willpower to not drag them or simply fall on the ground. She was not going back to the forest, absolutely not, it was dark and cold. Yet, she was not going to let him go alone. Undecided Sakura hesitated. Who knows what might happen to the timeline with the scrap of information he got. Things could change just from him being here, everything falling in a butterfly effect.

Her head hurt thinking about it. She pushed those thoughts aside.

What should she do with Madara? Her first instinct was to take him to the Hokage, but he had changed the course and she didn't think she'll be able to handle any more of the Uchiha's indecisiveness.

Sighing and rubbing her eyes, she ran after him. Sakura grabbed onto his sleeve, panting. "Can we just stop for a moment?"

He glared, yanking his sleeve out of her clammy grasp. "Then stop following me, I don't need a keeper," he growled, eyeing her dishevelled state with distaste.

She stood straighter, green eyes hardening in a glare of her own. "If you think that I'm going to leave you unattended then you're sourly mistaken. I'm trying to do my best to avoid an uproar in the village, it's seriously the last thing anyone needs here and...I'm trying to... _ _help__ you..." She shuddered, the notion of helping him unsettling her. "Believe me I don't want anything to do with you either, but for the sake of the village I'm ready to sacrifice whatever it takes and if it involves getting a pesky Uchiha away from the public eye then so be it." She balled her hands and refused to avoid his gaze even when it flashed red for a moment.

"I don't require your help and I have no intention of staying here any longer either." He levelled her with an impassive stare.

She refused to back down. There must be something she can do, something to make out of this whole thing.

She has made a lot of mistakes in the past, mistakes she wishes she could fix, things she wishes she could change. Every day she fights to try and make herself relevant, to be on the par with her teammates, to be less useless in a fight. Every day she has to deal with her self-esteem issues, she has to deal with the fact that she once again was left back, left alone, hoping for something while others get to experience love at its fullest. At times it was painful just to be around her friends, their happiness reminding her that hers had chosen to leave her hanging.

She was afraid to meddle with time and time travel, but the root of all of the problems for the past two decades was in front of her, for the time being, untainted by the evils his future self had committed. It might blow in her face, but she was willing to try and go this route if it meant that she can protect the village, protect her loved ones.

Mind set she stepped forward, trying to be intimidating even when she wanted to run away from his scorching glare. It seemed like he was a breath away from flipping her off and doing things his way. "Do you want to make a deal?"

His expression didn't change. "No."

Not letting the answer affect her, she raised her head higher. "By now I'm sure you realize that you're in a compromising position….and that this might not be a problem you can solve alone….I'm not kidding when I say that I'm probably the only person in this village insane enough to help you. Any other shinobi would want you killed on the spot…." Her words lingered in the air with a sense of finality. Her palms were sweaty and even though she was shivering she didn't let her eyes waver from his. She had to thank Tsunade for teaching her to stand up for herself.

Madara broke their eye contact, turning his body halfway away from her. "Being at the end of other's animosity isn't anything new to me. Though I can't deny that you're right."

Sakura smiled, tension leaving her body.

He peeked through his bangs. "But I'm curious if I'm such a maleficent being during your time, why should you help me? Shouldn't you do just as you said and try to off me like any other shinobi in the village?"

She grit her teeth. This wasn't information she was willing to share with him, it was too personal, too intimate. Swallowing, she gave him half of the truth. "Because I want to avoid others knowing about you. There still are many shinobi, civilians and children in the village who have the war fresh in their minds. As someone who works in the Mental Health Ward, I know first hand how much they suffer, how many scars they have. By seeing you, hearing about you being back it might offset all of the progress made during their healing, not to mention cause an uproar in the village that undoubtedly would spread like wildfire and reach the other villages in no time. Besides, I know that I could never win you in a fight," she added the last bit as an afterthought.

He was quiet. Crossing his arms, he gazed at the ground.

The silence unnerved her. It had gotten dark enough that the street lights were the only illumination. Said lights were painting his features in sharp angles, the shadows giving him a villainous look. The nearly barren street and the slight wind gave the atmosphere an eerie feel. It was like the world was trying to say to her that this was a bad idea...

"So that's your deal then – you help me go back while I stay on the down low…."

Sceptically she tilted her head. "Do you agree to those terms?"

Madara sighed and dropped his arms. "I do not wish to fight you nor is my intention to bring harm to the village, so essentially yes."

Sakura blinked, releasing a short breath. She had been expecting more of a fight, knowing how he acted, knowing what he did. This Madara was different from the Madara she knew during the war. Well, nobody was born evil. Madara, before he went insane, could be reasoned with and that was a relief.

They shook on it afterwards. When he intended to leave for the forest again Sakura had to explain to him that during night time security around the village increases – more ANBU guards patrolling the streets and clearance to be able to leave or enter the village. It was a miracle that they got in without a guard catching them on itself. She honestly had no idea what jutsu Madara had used to practically phase through the wall.

Ever since the war missing-nins and random attacks on villages became more common. She didn't know the reason behind the uproar, why had the war brought out more chaos. The fear of another organization similar to Akatsuki arising kept everyone on the edge. Even with the allegiance between the major villages, some relationships were strained and the missing-nin attacks weren't helping to improve those relations. Two years later the after-effects of the war hadn't diminished completely. She had hoped for a brighter future after all of the blood, gore and constant fighting. It had been a naive thought.

In the end, she had to settle for letting him stay in her apartment. Neither of them liked the idea, but it was the best she got. She didn't have the strength to argue with him anyway. She was at her wit's end. As soon as she'd entered her bedroom she'd barely managed to remove her sandals before she'd fallen on her bed, asleep as soon as her head had hit the pillow.

Xxx

The kunoichi had left him alone in her living quarters. She had grumbled something under her breath that he hadn't been able to make out and disappeared behind a door. She didn't come out, so he could only guess that she had passed out from her exhaustion. It was surprising that she had lasted as long as she did.

Seeing the two familiar faces carved in the mountain along with four other unknown faces had been unsettling. He had wanted to go back to the forest to inspect the place where he'd first detected the sudden change with chakra, but the kunoichi was right – there was little to no chance for him to find anything in the forest and he was too much of an outsider to navigate the future operatively.

It disturbed him to find out that in this future he was their version of the boogeyman. He was aware that he was no saint. Even during his time many in the village regarded him and by extension his clan as monsters. Although lately all of the animosity had befallen to him.

He was too distressed to get any rest that night, choosing to inspect the kunoichi's place and all of the futuristic appliances in it instead. All of it was so bizarre and the not knowing of what some of the things were made him wary of them, yet he was curious.

Madara inspected something that appeared to look like a teapot in her kitchen, face twisted in confusion. He gave up trying to figure out what it was, finding it useless. He sat at her table.

He'd seen a couple of bookshelves in her living room and had found a couple of interesting titles. That could be a possible way to spend his time, except he was in no particular mood to read.

Surveying the village through the window, he rested his chin in his palm. It was like being in a different reality, things looked the same yet off in so many ways. He had no idea how far in the future he'd ended up in. Judging from the six Hokage faces on the mountain and that he couldn't sense a single Uchiha in the village and maybe sense a single Senju, he'd say that it was pretty far. Could be way over a hundred years.

This place made him restless, he could barely sit still for five minutes. He hated being oblivious, hated being useless. He was at the mercy of the damn pink-haired kunoichi and that was a position he never had wanted to experience. He wasn't a fan of mercy, it was an obstacle towards something greater.

Getting up from the chair he trekked back to her living room where he'd seen a couple of tools on her table. Those were familiar to him and reminded him of home. He had foregone most of his weapons, only keeping pouches with kunai and shuriken.

He had to keep his mind off things for a while unless he wanted to get a stroke from all of the stress. Sharpening some of his kunai with her sharpening stones might help. He doubted that, but he needed to do something.

As he was pulling out his kunai piece of paper fell out. He hadn't stuck anything like that in there. Curiously he straightened out the paper. A small amount of moonlight streamed in through the window. It was enough light to see, yet he couldn't make out the kanji at all. He activated his Sharingan in hopes to find something familiar. The image was clearer and he had seen something like this before.

Madara laid back in the cushioned seats. It had to be a clue of some sorts. It was too convenient to be a random piece of paper. He lifted the paper back up to his face. The kanji, there were subtle differences in a couple of the characters. Could that mean that it was from a different country? He wasn't that well versed in other languages, so he couldn't tell.

The reason behind the tag was more concerning. It could have been a tool for a jutsu, a jutsu that might have been used on him.

Gritting his teeth and accidentally crumpling the paper in his hand, he shot up from his seat. Mind whirring through all kinds of possibilities, he paced from the living room to the kitchen and then back, mindlessly repeating the action again and again. What could this mean? Why was it in his weapons pouch? What kind of a jutsu correlated to the paper tag? Was this an attack planned by someone?

Madara halted, unfurling the tag. Was this the reason why he was in the future?

* * *

 _I originally didn't intend for this to be so serious-sounding, but it just sort of happened. Besides I wanted to showcase that after a war nothing ever is sunny and problems just don't go away when the baddie is beaten. I'm not sure when I'll update this since I just write what I feel the most motivated to write. I'll probably finish that ShiSaku one-shot first that I've been working on for over half a year before I decide on what I want to do next. I'm just posting this to see how this will fare, how well will people accept this idea.  
_

 _Anyway, thank you for reading._


	2. Never Forget

When she woke up in the morning her head was reeling and she felt a bit sick, not fully recovered just yet. It wasn't as bad as yesterday, but bad enough that she knew that she was going to be cranky the whole day.

After a bathroom break and change of clothes, the bizarre happening that was yesterday suddenly hit her. Was it a weird dream of hers induced by her exhaustion? Oh, she hoped so. It was too weird and out there to be true. Still, she was afraid to take a step into her living room in fear of it being true.

She let out a slow breath when she found her living room empty. It _was_ just a bad fever dream. She smiled to herself relieved. Everything was like it always was. She should remember not to exhaust herself so much next time, it was bad for her sanity. Though, when she stepped into her kitchen she nearly jumped into the air, squeaking.

Madara freaking Uchiha was in her damn kitchen, reading a thick book that looked like her encyclopedia and to top it all off he was sipping tea like nothing was wrong with the world. Somebody kill her. This can't be real.

He spared a short glance her way before he resumed his reading. No reaction, nothing at all.

Sakura swallowed the lump in her throat and stiffly went to her kettle for her usual morning cup of coffee. What the hell should she do? Only moments ago she had thought that he had been a figment of her imagination. She had no idea what to say. She ignored him for now, at least until she completed her morning routine.

She picked up the kettle and was surprised to find hot water in it already. After staring at it dumbly for a while she put it back in its place and pulled out her coffee mug and went to pour in her two spoons of coffee, finally after that adding water. Her hand paused in its actions, eyes locked onto the kettle in deep thought. It all made sense, her muddled mind just didn't put it together at first.

"How did you..." she trailed off, eyebrows drawn together. She eyed Madara again, who hadn't moved from his spot, the book still in his lap as he flipped a page.

Madara took a sip from his cup. "One measly device isn't going to stop me from getting my morning tea."

"Ah." She thought that with him being from the past that some things might be too alien to him to understand. She was wrong. Then again she should never underestimate an Uchiha. "Why're you reading that anyway?" She carefully moved closer to him, trying to peek over his shoulder to see what he was reading about, though mindful not to go too close.

He was quiet for a while. Sakura expected for him to ignore her again, but he proved her wrong by answering. "What is common knowledge to you is not to me and after looking through your bookshelves I found this to be the fastest way to learn about it all."

Sakura blinked. He was on a page about some of the most recent technological developments. "Through my student encyclopedia?"

This time he didn't deign her with an answer.

Sakura sighed, taking a seat opposite him and adding sugar to her coffee from her sugar cup. She didn't know how to feel about this development, him rummaging through her belongings aside for now. On one side she understood that he probably was curious about the changes the world has had since his time, but on the other, she didn't know how it would affect the current timeline. Then again her on the spot plan wasn't any better and by this point, things might have already changed irreversibly.

Her thoughts subsided and the situation suddenly became awkward. She fiddled with her spoon stiffly. It was weird with him here in her place. His presence was almost unnerving with how oppressing it felt. How should she even act? He was kind of different from what she knew him as, and he had agreed to cooperate with her, but she couldn't bite down the unease, the underlying fear that he might snap and cause destruction. Then it would all be her fault because she let an enemy shinobi enter the village.

She carefully eyed him, noting that while at the surface he looked kind of relaxed he actually was tired as all hell and was obviously on edge. Ah, so he was pretending to have his shit together...tch.

Madara placed the book on the table and rested his chin in his palm, his movements slightly stiff.

What even was the common courtesy when you housed an enemy? Oh, but of course there isn't any because any sane person wouldn't do that, but here she was, doing the stupid thing by letting the enemy stay with her. Even if this is the Madara from the past she still didn't like him or his damn attitude. Like, he could have at least thanked her or something...show some appreciation that she's risking her skin for him...fucking anything.

Getting up from her seat before she pissed herself off to an irreversible degree she walked to her fridge for some breakfast. She frowned at her nearly empty fridge. Not having much to choose from she pulled out a packet of yoghurt. When her eyes drifted above the stove to her clock she cursed. She had half an hour until her shift at the hospital starts and she hasn't gotten the time to give her report about her last mission to the Hokage as well.

Turning to her table she cursed again, making Madara eye her weirdly for a moment. He was going to be a problem. If she was going to go through with her plan...okay, first she needs to come up with a solid plan, but that thought aside, for now, she can't ditch her responsibilities just to babysit him. She didn't trust him enough to leave him alone in her apartment either.

She sat at the table and took a sip from her coffee and dipped her coffee spoon in her yoghurt. "Okay, so here's the deal…." She stuck the spoon in her mouth, catching his attention. "I have work in half an hour and as much as I hate doing it I'll have to leave you here." She took another spoonful and after that pointed the spoon towards him. "I'll trust you enough not to cause anything, okay?"

He frowned at her spoon. "While I understand where you're coming from, it doesn't mean that you can treat me like a child." He grabbed her stretched out a hand and pulled her closer to him, eyes flashing red, voice low. "I'm here because we made a deal, not because I wanted to be mothered by a petulant kunoichi. Learn your place." He released her.

Sakura scrambled back in her seat, glaring, absently rubbing her wrist. "Whatever," she mumbled, trying to avoid his gaze. She might have abused her power a bit too much there. "Just don't go outside, that's all I ask." She picked up her yoghurt and cup and walked out of the room, the tension too high for her to deal with it so early on.

She didn't honestly know how to act around him, nothing felt natural. She wasn't in the mood to argue either, so she had no choice but to leave him and hope that he listens to her.

Xxx

Madara didn't listen to the kunoichi's incessant babbling. He needed to find out what was going on and how to solve his problem. Sitting in her place he won't get anything done. She might have also pissed him off with her attitude and partially he was going outside just to spite her. Regardless, he wasn't idiotic enough not to take precaution and listened to some of her warnings.

He used the same henge he did the previous day, adding two layers of genjutsu for just in case and left the kunoichi's place.

The very first thing he was met with when he went outside was how much more populated the village was compared to yesterday evening. It was nearly overwhelming. The last time he saw so many people in one place was during the peace pact he had made with Hashirama. On one hand, it was great that the village had flourished so much, but on the other, he was almost afraid to know on what cost it had happened. Great things never happened just because.

There was a large diversity of shinobi and civilians – men, women from different races, different clans, clanless people were living together in peace, helping each other. It was everything Hashirama had envisioned and by extension him. Yet the events the kunoichi had described revealed that the sunny exterior might not be what it is. He still couldn't detect a single Uchiha in the village and only a single possible Senju. The pink-haired kunoichi also talked about the fourth ninja war, which meant that there had been three more before that. It seemed everything had come at some kind of a cost.

Madara ignored everything else, focusing on his objective. It was possible that he won't find anything, but he had to check the woods to be sure. It was a dire situation and even the smallest of details could help out.

He easily found the place in the wall where he first came through. Guards were patrolling the wall. He used the same jutsu as before to phase through the wall. The guards noticed the sudden spike of chakra, but by the time they did, he was already long gone in the trees.

The forest was the same as yesterday – familiar, yet not. It took him a while to navigate through with everything changed, eventually, he found the place where he had his run-in with the kunoichi.

He didn't find anything, even the bodies of the shinobi he had disposed of were gone. This just solidified his theory that whatever jutsu was cast on him was cast using the paper tag as some kind of medium.

The woods being a bust Madara made his way back to the village, using the same method as before. For a village that was supposedly under heavy surveillance, he managed to slip in relatively easily. Sloppy work on the Hokage's part not to prepare for all kinds of situations and shinobi. If he was Hokage he would have never allowed for such a measly detail to go unnoticed.

While walking through the village he noticed some of the odd stares some of the people were throwing his way. Now, he was used to people staring at him in fear or any other emotion that expressed it or admiration, but not when people looked at him like he was an exhibition.

His goal had been to find more information about the tag and hopefully about the village in a library, but it seemed like he'll have to take care of the staring problem first. He didn't want to draw attention to himself.

Was the blonde hair at fault? Maybe not, he had seen plenty of other people with blonde hair and some had even longer hair than his. Then was it his clothes? While the people around him were wearing almost foreign-looking clothing, he had seen some who wore clothing similar to how it was during his time.

In the end, he had concluded that it was his clothes. His garb was a bit too outdated in some aspects and his shirt did have the characteristic wide collar that mostly is worn by the Uchiha. He didn't understand what was so odd about his garb, but a change was going to be needed if he wanted to fit in.

He located a shinobi shop in no time that sold all kinds of ninja tools and clothes. He chose some of the simplest things all in black. Some other garments looked too weird and too colourful for his tastes and added a couple of shuriken to his purchase, which, by the time he got to the salesman, wasn't purchase any more, but theft. The currency had changed as well and the money he had on him was vain, thus he had had to resort to using the sharingan in making the clerk think that he paid for all of it.

A measly setback, nothing to fret over, he's done worse things than that. It was sad that he had to essentially steal from his village...although...this village wasn't the same...this village detested him more than his village...so...who cares?

After that, he more or less looked like the rest of the populous with simple shinobi pants, sandals with wrappings and a high collared, long-sleeved shirt. Hopefully, now he will be able to search the village for a library in peace. During his time they hadn't gotten far enough in building their village to set up a library yet, it not being a primary needs thing was left to set up at a later date, so he had no clue in which direction to search. The buildings themselves were so different, that alone was disorienting enough.

Madara sighed taking what seemed to be his fifth turn down a street that looked nearly identical to the last one. Okay, maybe the streets weren't identical, but they might as well be from how alien everything felt. It also seemed like he might have wandered into the living district of the village, considering how the number of colourful banners dwindled to none. It wasn't supposed to be so hard to find a simple library, though the village had expanded so much that he might need a freaking map to navigate through.

Inconveniences, inconveniences. His life nowadays seemed to consist of only those.

He had to turn back, retrace his steps and find some directions.

He didn't get far with that idea for a long pony-tailed, blonde kunoichi wearing very revealing clothing stepped in front of him, a devious smirk on her face. She raked her eyes over him before she opened her mouth. "I haven't seen you around before."

Contrary to her he recalled seeing her around, multiple times. He briefly had suspected that she might be following him from how often he saw her during his short excursion and here she was proving him right. She had that glint in her eye that just screamed trouble and it probably would be in his best interests to ditch her as fast as possible.

She stepped closer and crossed her arms, leaning forward, her eyes slitted in concentration as she assessed his appearance. "Hmmm...well, you don't look like her type, but at least she's moving forward." She took a step back.

What was she even talking about? He didn't appreciate her scrutiny either. He glared in response. "I think you're mistaking me for someone else."

The blonde wasn't even phased, waving her hand like what he was talking about was nonsense. "Psh, yeah 'cause there just are that many new shinobi with long, blonde hair like yours in the village." Her eyes settled back on him, assessing. "From which village are you anyway? I don't see your hitai-ate anywhere."

 _Which village?_ There is more than one? To think that other people and not just him and Hashirama had the dream of a peaceful village was kind of mind-blowing. Now he definitely needed to find a library. The book he was reading earlier today had focused only on Konoha, so he had assumed that Konoha was the only shinobi village. Truthfully he shouldn't be so surprised, this is the future after all and so far nearly everything he could imagine had changed or was new and unknown to him.

"I'm not from any village." If she wanted a clarification he could just say that he's from a clan or use the sharingan on her, although he was a bit wary of doing the latter for the people around him might notice it. He didn't want to think of the worst, but there might be a possibility that the Uchiha had fled the village at some point and were in a possible feud with Konoha, so the sharingan might raise some flags.

Her hazy blue eyes narrowed dangerously. "Oh, a rouge nin are you? How did you even get into the village then? Did Sakura smuggle you in?"

Madara clenched his fists. He didn't even know who Sakura was. He has wasted enough time entertaining the blonde kunoichi, he has no time for her delusions. Madara walked past her.

"Hey, I wasn't done talking!" She ran to catch up to him, stopping in front of him once she did. She glared and he glared back, a few sharp words at the tip of his tongue. "What really is going on here? Is Sakura in trouble?"

"You have the wrong person." His patience was wearing thin and that was saying a lot considering that he was used to spending his days around Hashirama, who was an annoyance on a whole new scale. So far he wasn't impressed with the shinobi of the future. He'd met two different kunoichi and both of them were stubborn beyond reason.

He tried to shove her aside, but she latched onto his arm and ceased the movement, eyes settled in determination. "Now you're just awfully rude. And here I am trying to look out for my best friend. Who the fuck are you and what are you doing here?" Her grip increased, face contorted in anger.

That was the last straw. Throwing caution to the wind he activated his sharingan.

The blonde kunoichi immediately froze upon seeing it, her grip slackening. Her eyes were wide with something akin to fear in them, mouth open.

Ah, how nice to know that he won't even need to use a genjutsu on her. She wasn't dim enough not to fear his dojutsu. A small smile slipped across his lips. At least the people here still had a healthy fear of the sharingan despite the Uchiha not being residents in the village anymore.

She released him fully and took a step back, eyes pinned to his spinning sharingan despite common sense. "Wha...wh..." She was stumbling over words and in turn over her own feet, almost falling over when she took another step back.

Deactivating his sharingan he walked away.

The kunoichi fell on the ground, onlookers sparing her a quick confused glance.

He'd been lucky that no one else had seen that little stunt of his, too preoccupied with their agendas, that being another problem he had noticed among the shinobi. In his day people knew to take caution and be aware of their surroundings...and great now he sounds like his father during one of his _stories_.

Grumbling Madara increased his step. Uchiha Tajima was not someone he wanted to be or particularly think about. Here and now mattered more than some old, dead man he used to call his father and frankly he was lost again in the here and now. He had made it back to the shopping district. Nothing had changed, everything looked just as disorienting as before – the mass of people, buildings, banners. It was overwhelming.

Stepping aside as not to have people running into him, he rubbed the bridge of his nose. He will need some help with this, as embarrassing as it was to admit and probably something to eat as well, even if he was too stressed to think about eating, getting malnourished wasn't on his to-do list.

He ended up backtracking to the kunoichi's place in shame, not a step closer to resolving his problem.

Xxx

Sakura got back home late evening still drained and cranky. Like she'd predicted she had been in too much of a bad mood to work with patients. After she had unintentionally made a kid cry because she'd been too harsh with the truth and yelled at a nurse, she'd excused herself to her office to catch up on doing her mountain of paperwork. Her mood didn't improve during that time, she only got more annoyed when she read some of the reports from the newbie nurses. By that point, she had ended up annoying herself with how much everything irritated her. Her day had been a vicious circle of one thing irritating her after another.

During that time she did think about what to do with Madara. He was the root of her annoyance. Okay, maybe she was exaggerating, but the added stress of him being around wasn't doing any favours for her sanity. All she had come up with so far had been to try and change his mind about Konoha and make him not leave it when he goes back to his time. That was what started the domino effect of bad events, right? Hmm...maybe she should ask him for more clarification on some things.

Sometime after her shift, her mind had wandered back to the sad situation with her fridge. That's how she had wasted an hour in the market, buying groceries, mind flying around the possible questions she could ask the Uchiha. This did open up a chance for her to find out more about the founding of Konoha straight from the source and as a person who loved to learn in general she was almost giddy to try and ask him some of the questions that had formed in her mind.

Other than that, she had no clue how to help him get back to his time, her schedule being too packed for her to search for a solution.

Sakura sighed and placed the milk carton in the fridge. Her eyes felt like they had been put on a stick from how much they hurt. Stupid paperwork. She finished putting away her groceries, silently hating herself for putting such a strain on her eyes for hours.

She turned to Madara who, for all means and purposes, looked like he hadn't moved a muscle since the morning she left him, except, differently from the morning, now she could practically feel the frustration roll of off him in waves. She had a sinking feeling that whatever she might ask now about his time might not go over well. Just a hunch there. Still, doesn't mean she isn't going to try, being an annoying nuisance to get what she wants was like a walk in the park for her.

"What do you want for dinner?" Some buttering up would need to come first though, and she was sure that he must be as hungry as her after a long day.

"I don't really care, make what you want," he answered without looking up from the book.

Sakura scoffed. There goes that idea out of the window. How does she sway him if he's acting so indifferent towards everything?

She opened her mouth for a retort to his lacklustre answer but was cut off when her doorbell started blaring insistently. She growled and went to open the door. Whoever was bothering her this late better have a good reason or else she was going to serve them a nice knuckle sandwich.

Sakura opened her door, scowl in place and fist balled. The door got knocked out of her grasp as Ino stormed in, words falling from her lips faster than she could catch them.

"Ino-pig, slow down! What do you want?" She grabbed the blonde by the shoulders, glaring daggers at her.

Ino's wide eyes settled on her. "Who is that blonde guy you were walking with yesterday?"

Startled Sakura released her. She didn't think when the next question slipped past her lips, "How do you know about that?"

The blonde rolled her eyes. "Please, I know everything that's going on in the village."

Right. She had forgotten that Ino was a gossip and if someone had seen her with Madara and spread it around then it would inadvertently reach Ino's ears as well. She should have known that this wouldn't go over as smooth as she had expected. Fucking hell, the last thing she needs is for the word to spread that it was Madara in disguise.

Ino took her quiet as an initiative to continue. "What I really want to know is, why does he have the sharingan?"

Sakura blanched. H-how was that possible? Why does she know that? Madara didn't activate his sharingan in the village yesterday. "W-what?" It was a bad idea to lie to Ino, the girl was trained in detecting things like that, but she didn't know any other way to get out of this. "What are you talking about, Ino-pig?" Of course, she wasn't exactly a stellar liar, though this was partially true.

The blonde kunoichi growled, frowning. "Don't play stupid with me. I saw him today and he very clearly threatened me with the sharingan. Is it Sasuke? Like there really is no one else…", she added as an afterthought, brows raising at the sudden realization, though it only increased the number of questions coming from her mouth. "Why is he hiding? Why are you keeping him a secret? Are you guys secretly dating?" Her voice elevated, arms flailing around as she motioned with them as a shit-eating grin settled on her face.

She could barely keep up with the rate Ino was speaking in and the number of questions she threw her way. She didn't hear anything after Ino mentioned sharingan and threatening. Her hands balled, frame shaking. Madara apparently did not understand the importance of what she had said and Ino being here was the proof of that. And now that she thinks about it he seemed to be wearing something different as well.

"Sakura?" Ino interjected, her grin falling. "What is going on?" Her voice lost its edge becoming a lot gentler in a way that Sakura knew she was trying to placate her.

Sadly for Ino, she had been on the edge of blowing up the whole day. When she finally answered it was through clenched teeth. "It's not what you think it is, Ino."

"Then please explain it to me."

Sakura exhaled, counting to ten in her head. As much as she wanted to throw caution to the wind and engage in her violent urges, she couldn't risk Ino finding out that the source of her ire and the questions was in the next room over. She didn't know if she could fully trust the blonde. She wanted to tell her and share the burden of her stress, but she was afraid of the blonde overreacting and unintentionally spreading the news. After all the war had affected Ino more personally than her.

"Sakura, please. Don't you trust me?" Ino pleaded, sticking out her lip for extra measure.

She bit her lip and turned away from her friend, ashamed that she had guessed right. She didn't know what the right choice was any more. She might have passed 'right' the moment she didn't report this to the Hokage and made it all about herself. She can't back away now, she made her choice and that was to help Madara and hopefully change the turn of events and such tragedies as the Uchiha massacre to never happen. It was her one chance to maybe give Sasuke a better life, a life where he doesn't need to leave the village, a life where he isn't alone.

She unclenched her trembling hands and exhaled again, taking a seat on her couch. Ino followed, sitting almost uncomfortably close.

Sakura folded her hands in her lap, back ramrod straight. "Before I say anything please promise me that you won't overreact?"

Ino rolled her eyes, slumping a bit. "I don't overreact, but okay I promise. Now, what is it? Explain!"

Sakura took a deep breath. "Would you believe me if I told you that that wasn't Sasuke?" She purposely lowered her voice, afraid that Madara might overhear.

The blonde kunoichi leaned closer to her, brows drawn together. "Why are you whispering? And who else could it be if not Sasuke? Every other Uchiha is dead."

Shit!

"Ino, please lower your voice." She waved with her hands. This was not how she wanted for Madara to find out that his clan is practically dead. She wasn't sure what his feelings about his clan during this time were, but she hadn't wanted to risk it and trigger him in some way.

"Why?" Ino's lip curled up in confusion as she leaned back from her.

Sakura subtly motioned with a small incline of her head to the kitchen, mouth in a flat line.

The blonde's eyes immediately widened and she hunched closer, voice low. "Shit, is he here?"

Sakura nodded firmly. "But it's not who you think it is."

"C'mon just tell me, Forehead, I'm at the edge of my seat here," she whined, forgetting to be quiet.

Sakura let her posture decline as she settled her eyes on her folded hands. "It's Madara," her voice cracked.

Ino's face scrunched up in confusion. "You're shitting me?"

"I know it sounds crazy, I mean, I don't really understand it myself, but he's here, from the past, oblivious like a small child." She snorted. "It's kind of hilarious now when I think about it..."

"You're serious about this?" The bewilderment seeped through her voice.

"Yes, Ino."

"Wait, wait! It's Madara from the past?"

Sakura nodded.

Ino fell back into the couch, defeated. "This doesn't make any sense." She lay there blankly staring at the ceiling.

Sakura wrung her hands together, afraid to look at Ino.

The blonde sat back up, eyes set in stone. "Then prove it!"

Uh, oh. Sakura knew that tone and that look. The blonde didn't believe her, yet she knew once she leads her to Madara all hell will break loose. Ino had her own set of grudges and she had even fewer inhibitions to let them loose onto someone.

Ino stood up, frowning, ready for Sakura to lead her.

Sakura grabbed Ino's hand and yanked her to her bedroom and explained everything to her, remembering to keep her voice down. It was hard to do when Ino was too worked up to control her volume.

Ino was enraged by the end of her explanation, brows drawn into a permanent scowl, arms tightly crossed. "Lead me to him."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I know that as soon as I do you'll attack him."

"Well, duh. I'm surprised you haven't done so sooner. We kill that motherfucker and everything gets resolved."

"It's not that simple, Ino."

"It's not simple because you choose to make it difficult. Have you already forgotten the things he's done? The grief he caused to others? How he killed my _dad_!? I can't believe you, Sakura! You have the chance to reverse everything, yet you do nothing about it."

"I haven't forgotten and I am doing something like I told you I don't want to mess with the past too much, I just want to change some things."

"Oh, yeah 'cause that's just so much better."

"Don't even start, Ino! You don't know how I feel! How I had to watch the love of my life walk away from me multiple times because of his misfortune while you get to have your happy ending, while all of you get to be happy!"

"It's not my fault you centre your happiness around a single guy."

"As I said, you just don't get it."

"What I don't get is how you wanting to get with Sasuke translates to helping fucking Uchiha Madara hide in the village! You do realise that that's treason?"

Sakura bit her lip, averting her gaze for the first time all through their argument. The fire died and all that was left was emptiness in her chest. "I know. I know, Ino. I know that what I'm doing is treason, that I should have told Kakashi about this as soon as I found him. I know that I should have done a lot of things, but for once in my life, I want to do something right, something that will change things."

"Fine then, do as you want. Just remember once you get outed that I told you so. You can't change evil, especially if that person is you." Ino stormed out of her room and exited her apartment with a loud slam of the door.

Sakura lowered her head, looking at the space where Ino once stood. "You're wrong, Ino, no one is born evil," she whispered and fell back on her bed, tears prickling in her eyes. She covered her face with her arm as the first few tears fell.

Xxx

Two hours later she came out of her room, face splotchy from crying.

Ino was angry with her and didn't mean what she had said, but still, some of those things had cut deep. The whole argument had made her question her choices. She hated the blonde for what she had said, for questioning her like that because all this time Ino had been supporting her and her choices, but the one time when she needs it most she turns her back to her. She felt betrayed.

Sakura valued their friendship and wanted to be truthful, especially after what Ino had insinuated…and this is what she gets – a slap in the face. She couldn't even remember the last time both of them had gotten into such a serious argument. She hoped that Ino out of spite wouldn't say anything about this to anyone.

And Madara...she didn't know what to do with him...she was still pissed at him beyond reason, now for an added reason (that wasn't his fault, but that didn't matter to her). She truly believed that he wasn't evil at this point of time, nothing he had done had explicitly suggested so. Yes, he had threatened her, but she had kind of deserved that for treating him like Naruto. Yes, he had ignored her warnings and went out in the village, but she knew that it had been an unreasonable request to uphold for a shinobi that is used to an active lifestyle, especially for someone who appeared to be as curious as him.

She was already deep in the shit she had created, so the least she could do is follow it through – do as she promised and try to execute her plan.

When she stepped into her kitchen she found Madara in front of her stove, putting something on a plate from a pot with her large wooden spoon.

Bewildered she blinked a couple of times at the sight. She trotted closer to peek what was in the pot.

He extended the plate to her, indicating for her to take it. It was yasai itame.

Sakura blinked. She took the plate with stiff hands.

Well, he did have enough time to cook something, though she hadn't expected it at all. Heck, she didn't expect for him to understand how to do it at all with what was modern cutlery to him. Nothing really will stop him from getting what he wants, huh?

He handed her a pair of chopsticks, which she also took. "Uh, thank you…," she mumbled and with a puzzled look walked to her kitchen table, avoiding looking at him. She sat down and stared at her plate like it was an alien.

This...this might have just redeemed him in her eyes. She had come out of her room with the intent to pour her anger out on him for no other reason than that she was hurt. Now...now she didn't know what to think...she was grateful that she didn't need to cook herself, yet puzzled on why he had done it and shared it with her…

"So...Sakura?"

She rose her head at his curious tone.

He had stayed near the stove, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. "It's a fitting name."

Sakura frowned at his odd choice of topic. What does this have to do...oh... She had never told him her name and he had never asked for it either. He must have heard Ino say her name… The little pang in her chest came back. She lowered her head back to her plate.

Madara took a seat at the opposite side of the table. "There are a couple of things I wish to discuss with you."

"Huh?" She lifted her head to meet his dark eyes.

He put his hands on the table and intertwined his fingers, an unreadable expression on his face.

Sakura shuddered. This wasn't going to end well.

* * *

 _This story just took a mind of its own. This is so different from my draft it's insane. I also feel like I continuously made fun of Madara during his part xD, but I promise that Sakura will get her moments as well. Don't expect for Madara to stay clueless for long, if I had to name a single character in Naruto that has determination made of stainless steel then I'd say it's Madara. This bitch won't stop until he has everything figured out from top to bottom and then turn everything in his favour.  
_

 _Anyway, I want to say a huge, HUGE thank you to everyone, like I'm blown away from the number of responses I got on the first chapter. I've never gotten so many in such a short time and on one chapter no less. Oh god, now I have so many people to disappoint, but seriously thank you all for all of the faves, follows and a special thank you to the lovelies that reviewed: Shion Lee, MysticMoonlight474, GwimGwim, Tobiramamara, ollia, sarahmchugs, Targaryen Breaker, Marquise de Nile, tiffanycr and GemNika. Honestly, this is the first time I've gotten so many reviews on a single chapter and all of them from registered users no less.  
_

 _I also feel like I should draw some more MadaSaku just so this story can finally have a cover, I don't seem to draw enough of them in a way that could pass as a cover. Meh, we'll see what happens._

 _Thank you for reading._


	3. One Day I'll Find It

He got tired of waiting. "Were you planning to manipulate me?"

She opened her mouth to speak again except nothing illegible came out.

So he was right. She was planning to manipulate him for her own goals. How devious, using his lack of knowledge of the future to skew his views. How much of what she's told him so far is true? Was she even trustworthy?

"No! I'm not trying to manipulate you, I'm trying to change your mind and before you say it, changing someone's opinion is different from manipulation if you're telling the truth." Her eyes hardened and the grip on her chopsticks increased.

Madara leaned back in his seat. "Hmm, is that so." For all he knew she could have been manipulating him from the very start and her friend was in on it. He didn't want to say that her emotional outbursts weren't genuine, but he's seen people fake more than that. At first, he believed her from the general confusion of the situation, now when he's had more time to mull things over some details were way too sketchy to be true, especially her mentions of the Uchiha clan being all dead except for one.

"Listen, as much as I'd love to have this conversation with you, which is not at all, it's nearly midnight and all I want to do is eat my food and sleep – I'm tired as fuck, so please, let's just leave all these mental gymnastics for tomorrow." She absently motioned with her chopsticks in a circle, the fight in her eyes disappearing, her posture slouching.

"No."

"What?! No? I'm tired and I wanna sleep!"

He glared and she froze, biting her lip. He isn't going to give her time to think and tell him lies. This was the perfect moment to interrogate her. "I want proof-" Sakura groaned and slumped in her chair, "-that I am what you say I am. Prove to me that it was me that started the war and caused all this grief to the village and then I'll believe what you have to say."

"What, Ino's angry outburst wasn't enough for you?" She curled her lip in distaste while redirecting her gaze to her hands.

"From what I understand she was your friend and you might have planned all of this with her."

Sakura groaned again and ran a hand down her face. "Can you please be paranoid some other time? I'm too tired to have this conversation right now."

She was avoiding answering. The way she was rubbing her eyes with the tips of her fingers and acting, like he was the nuisance here, irritated him. She'd forgotten the warning he had given her in the morning and had learned nothing. He activated his sharingan and caught her unaware self in a simple genjutsu.

Sakura gasped and gripped the edge of the table, eyes flying to him in a scorching glare. "What are you trying to pull?" she asked through clenched teeth.

Disappointing that it hadn't worked as well as he'd hoped – she still stayed seated in her place. Stubborn to a fault.

Madara unthreaded his fingers and leaned closer to her, almost invading her personal space. "I do not take kindly to disobedience."

She hung her head, panting. A dry chuckle slipped past her lips. Glaring through her hair, she snarled, "I've had...periods...worse than...this."

Matching her gaze, he increased the strength of the genjutsu.

A squeak escaped her throat. The table squeaked against the floor from her white-knuckled grip on it. Despite all of this she still stayed in her chair, death glaring.

"I will not tolerate your disrespect, Sakura."

"You...gotta earn...it first...fucker..."

Him? Earn respect? He earned it the moment he was born an Uchiha. He earned it when he became the head of the clan. He earned it when he became one of the founders of Konoha. And this low born nobody dared to insinuate that he has to earn it? Again? Madara leaned back in his chair, observing her struggle against the pain. He wasn't getting any results or reactions he had desired, so he dispelled the genjutsu. "Tell me, are all of the people here as uncouth as you and your friend? People in my time, especially kunoichi, knew their place and social standing."

She laughed, the laugh coming out breathless and raised her head to show her loopy, pain-ridden grin. "I'm sorry for...not being a basic bitch...and kissing the ground you walk upon…" Her tone was laced with sarcasm.

He exhaled slowly, clutching his hands together. She oddly reminded him of Tobirama, who never missed a chance to be passive-aggressive and be a massive pain to deal with. Was this what happened when Senju got to rule the village? If so he did not like it one bit. Teaching respect for people should have been part of the system. Yet he didn't want to fight her, not that she would be a match, but simply that it was pointless and a waste of time.

Madara got up from his seat with a loud screech of the chair. "Your lack of cooperativeness and disrespect has told me enough – I have no more reason to stick around." He avoided looking at her slumped form and headed for the exit.

Sakura extended her hand in his path. "Wait!" She swiped the sweat off her face and flung back strands of hair that had fallen in her face. "Alright, I'll give you proof." She stood up with a groan. "Will my history books be enough for now?"

He had half a mind to simply ignore her and go his own way, her antics testing his patience too much. She was tired and smaller than him, no obstacle at all, yet he couldn't deny that he was curious. It had been his initial reason for confronting her – more information. Her bookshelves had been filled with books on medicine, none of them had been history. "Fine, I'll look at your books, but in the future, you should remember some decency."

Sakura took a step back, sighing. "Okay, okay, duly noted. Though, you gotta realize that all my memories of you aren't the most pleasant and remembering to be decent to someone who caused carnage for idiotic ideals is hard. Heck, half the time I don't know if I can trust you not to do just that." She grimaced and averted her gaze.

Madara crossed his arms, shifting his weight to one foot. She was right and in a sense, it did explain her behaviour. "I am not the same person you remember me as."

She shrugged and briefly met his eyes. "Yeah, well you've still yet to prove it to me..." she let the sentence hang. "And there was a point when you turned into the crazy megalomaniac I remember, so how can I know that that point might not be now?"

He honestly had no idea what might have caused him to go nuts, he could have a wild guess, but he had always seen himself as a stable and reasonable person who was in control. His future self would disagree. There might have been something that made him snap, something that pushed him too far. But what? "You can't."

Her shoulders sagged and she eyed the plate of food with longing. "I'll go get the books." She dragged her feet out of the kitchen, her movements languid.

His eyes strayed to her untouched plate as well. He wasn't planning to stay for long, long enough to satiate his curiously, but that was it. Sakura was too busy with whatever was going on in her own life to focus on his problems and frankly he was getting way too claustrophobic to stay coped up in her little place for any longer. Her shady goals and his worries about what is happening to the village during his absence was enough to make him restless. Something needed to be done and soon.

Xxx

Most of the night he spent reading, only passing out for an hour or two from exhaustion. The books Sakura had given him were old and hadn't said a single word about a fourth shinobi war. What they did have were all of the previous wars and other developments about the village. Obviously, the book was written by the victors, the Uchiha weren't described in the best way and certain details, especially concerning him, were wrong. Granted he hadn't experienced some of the events written down in the books just yet, but he knew himself enough to know that his leave from the village to pillage, murder and rape were comically evil reasons.

The integrity of the books was questionable and he was left with doubts if he had even been at fault for anything and if they had just made him the scapegoat for all of their problems. He wouldn't put it past a Senju run village to do just that, especially if said village was once run by Tobirama. He put a lot into making Konoha possible and sacrificed a lot, even more than Hashirama ever did, yet he was the villain here. The injustice irked him.

He threw the book aside and stretched his arms, satisfied when he heard a pop. The night had been uneventful and he hadn't discovered anything useful. Here's to the hope that the next two books would hold something a bit more interesting.

When the dawning sun had painted the humble kitchen in light hues of orange did Sakura come back, slouching into the kitchen wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and a top. Her hair was a mess and she seemed to orientate herself through the kitchen by touch. With a clink, she poured herself a glass of water from the tap.

Madara ignored her, finding more interest in the book he was reading. It looked promising, though he wasn't holding his breath – it was a biography on Tobirama of all people. The first couple sentences of the intro had already made him want to gag, yet morbid curiosity had made him continue reading. How did the little weedling die?

A sudden splash of water disturbed the silence.

"Holy fucking shit, Madara! You scared me." Sakura was panting, clutching at her chest where she had splashed water on herself. "Did you go to sleep at all?" She continued without waiting for his answer. "Oh shit, I never gave you a pillow or anything, did I? Fuck, I'm sorry, I'll go do that right now."

"Sakura."

She paused and exhaled loudly before she met his eyes.

"Calm down."

Putting down her spilt glass on the counter, she ran a hand through her dishevelled hair. "Right." A yawn escaped her.

He turned his attention back to the book, unwillingly reading the same passage over and over again. She was staring at him and it was difficult to concentrate.

Sakura took the seat across from him. "So, has anything been helpful yet?"

Madara closed the book and pushed it aside, the kanji from the book still swimming across his vision. "Considering that the book was written by Senju and that it had no mentions of the Fourth Shinobi war or the Uchiha massacre the books have been of very little help."

Sakura slumped on the table, the sugar cup rattling loudly from her action. She sighed loudly. "I knew it. Now you wanna leave, right?"

He hummed. "I was under the impression that you wanted for me to stay?"

She sat straight in her seat, waving her hands. "No, no, you got me wrong. I do want you to stay here. It's just right now I can't provide you with anything solid, except my word. I would need to go to the library for newer books, heck I'll go get anything you need just say it and I'll do it."

Awfully eager now is she? She hadn't been specific about her goals when she was talking with her friend, so he could only guess what was driving her to such lengths where she would be ready to do anything for him. Passively he stared her down.

Sakura bit her lip and twiddled her thumbs. "But I can do it only after my work shift." She avoided his gaze, staring at the sugar cup instead. "Write a list or something of the things you need and when I'll leave for work I'll take it," she added a couple of minutes later. A yawn ripped from her mouth and with a small wave, she slouched out of the kitchen.

He gave up reading the last book, mulling over what Sakura had sad instead for the rest of the morning. He'd felt restless the entire night yet he couldn't find the power within him to stand up from the chair, even when his legs had gone numb from the static position. Instead, he had silently observed the village below him wake up. Muffled chatter and rustle increased as the sun raised higher in the sky.

Sakura returned, fully dressed in her regular attire with a white overcoat, when the sun was already high in the sky. Instead of greeting she waved her hand and enacted the same routine she'd gone through in the previous morning. She fussed around the kitchen for a while until she sat in her seat, placing a steaming cup of before her and another one near him. The scent of lemon tea prevailed in the air.

Madara barely acknowledged the mug, keeping his eyes trained on three children decked in shinobi gear chatter amongst themselves as they made their way down the street. Their dream of not having children to fight hadn't come true as well.

"So?" She broke the silence only briefly catching his attention. "Did you make a list?" She stirred her spoon in her cup, adding sugar to it with another spoon from the sugar cup.

"No."

The stirring stopped and she blinked owlishly. "What? I thought that you'd be interested in using my help to get more info?"

Madara sighed, finally accepting the mug of hot tea she'd left for him. "I am, though apart from me not having any utensils to write you such a list, it's not even that long that you could forget it."

Curiously tilting her head she stirred her spoon again, creating a lot of noise. "Okay then, let's hear it."

He raised a single finger. "First, get me books that are more recent, "he raised another finger, "and second: what do you know about foreign languages?"

"Uh, what kind of languages?"

He hesitated. Was she even trustworthy? ...not like he had much of a choice if he wanted to move forward. He pulled out the mysterious tag from his pocket and placed it on the table between them. He didn't say anything, letting her piece the information together herself.

Sakura carefully picked up the tag, inspecting it, even turning it around in all kinds of different angles and hummed thoughtfully, taking a sip from her cup. "It's not a language it's a fuinjutsu seal. I haven't seen one like this before, though." She placed down her cup to finally eye him.

Fuinjutsu seal? Where has he heard something like that before?

"I can look in the library for anything that might help. I'll just make a quick copy of this." Getting up from her chair she ran out of the kitchen.

She'd left the tag on the table and it stared back at him.

Mito! That's where he's heard about it before. Mito used fuinjutsu seals. The Uzushiogakure kunoichi was a new addition to the village and had brought with her the new art of sealing. Why was one of her seals in his pocket?

Madara drank from his cup and placed his head in his palm, brow furrowing, turning his attention back to the bustling village below. Everything seemed to just get more complicated and difficult. Nothing made sense. His uselessness was aggravating and the need to get out and do something, anything was becoming stronger. Everything was so alien and he hated to admit it but he kind of missed Hashirama and the village of his time. The one before him was so packed and loud...so different.

Sakura came barging back with the required tools, eyes shining in excitement.

Sadly the village hadn't achieved what he and Hashirama had been dreaming about, even if it had changed from his time. The faces of haunted shinobi were still around and children still participated in fights they had no part of...

Xxx

Sakura was about ready to rip her hair out of her head. Everyone needed something from her and all day she had been running around like a headless chicken. It was part of her job, but the added stress of worrying about hospital finances, expansions and Madara was about to drive her into the ground.

She had been agonizing over the extra hospital wing for weeks. Where will she find the funds for it? Will anyone accept her idea of a mental health ward? Where will she find appropriate staff? That morning she had even cried when a letter had come back to her with her request to the daimyo to be generous and invest in her plight had been denied. She could crowdfund, but she doubted the general populous understood the importance of mental health. Maybe getting Ino to teach some staff some basic therapy… Shit! Ino was a no go for now, at least for as long as she was angry at her.

Her day had ended with her dragging her feet to the library only to realize that it was past closing time. Thankfully her status as the former apprentice of the Hokage got her some perks and she'd quickly picked up some fuinjutsu books. She was bone tired and couldn't muster up the will to care if she'd grabbed anything useful or valid. Madara will just have to live with it.

The sun was barely out when she finally got back home. Madara had changed his leisure place from the kitchen to the living room and had had a change of clothes. She didn't inquire, even if he did leave her place again during the day she didn't have the strength to reprimand him for it.

Placing the bag of books on the coffee table she eyed him.

He barely acknowledged her presence, focusing on the book in his hand.

A small smile stretched across her lips. Who would have thought that one of the most formidable shinobi of all time was such a bookworm? Then again she supposed that even the mighty needed a casual hobby to fill their time with.

She stood stiffly, staring into space, trying to gather her courage. "Say, what do you plan to do once you get back?"

He briefly glanced at her through his hair. "Finish the projects I started."

She hugged her elbows. "No, I mean, what are you going to do now when you know all this?" She vaguely motioned with her hands in the air.

The silence stretched on for a while until he replied, "I don't know."

"Oh. I thought that you'd...you know...do something…," she trailed off awkwardly, avoiding his sceptical gaze.

He closed the book and put it down near the bag on the coffee table. "I haven't thought that far yet."

Dumbly Sakura blinked. With his reputation she'd figured that he'd already be three steps ahead of her, concocting crazy plans with the newly gained information. Maybe she was judging him too fast and putting her knowledge of his future self as something unchangeable.

Sakura bit her lip and fidgeted from foot to foot. With his full attention on her, she was feeling oddly nervous, the air tense. He could be unpredictable and she wasn't a fool who would step on the same rake for the third time by being an asshole towards him, she wasn't a masochist. "...umm...what was the village like back in your time?"

"There were less mouthy kunoichi around."

She pouted. Edged on by his cheekiness she sat down on the coffee table, not too far from where his legs pressed against the table and crossed her arms. "I figured, though how did you guys start it? What's it like living there? And who is the boss between you and Shodai-sama?"

He threw a glare her way and her mouth clamped shut. Involuntarily her hands dropped in her lap, gripping the edge of her qipao dress. She might have stepped on that rake again accidentally.

"Why suddenly so many questions? Shouldn't you know all of this already?" The annoyance was clear in his tone.

"Uh, I mean, I do know some stuff, but it's different hearing it straight from the source. Like how did you come up with the name Konohagakure?"

"I just did."

Wow, was he a joy to talk to. Sakura puffed her cheeks and slumped her posture. He wasn't in a good mood and the menacing stare of his was making shudders run up her spine. She sighed.

Suddenly Madara picked up the bag of books and stepped into her bedroom, closing the door.

Stunned she stared at the closed door. How dare he just leave like that and go into her bedroom? A string of profanities laid on the tip of her tongue.

With a loud bang, her front door came flying open and a blur of orange rushed in.

Her sweet release of anger was cut short.

"Hey, Sakura-chan!"

Naruto as always barged right into her apartment like he fucking owned it. How she hadn't sensed him was a mystery.

Turning swiftly on her heel she dodged a huge hug from the blonde, smacking him lightly on the back of his head. "What did I say about knocking? I could've been naked."

He visibly blushed and rubbed the spot she'd hit. "...I honestly thought that you wouldn't answer the door if I knocked."

She stuck her hands in her sides. "Why wouldn't I?"

He suddenly averted his gaze towards the floor, twiddling his thumbs.

Sakura frowned. Naruto running into her apartment like a barbarian wasn't anything new, the shy act though. He was hiding something.

"Uhm...well...ah, how are you feeling, Sakura-chan?" He grinned, clearly faking his grin.

She assessed him for a moment. "I'm fine, Naruto," she deadpanned, crossing her arms across her chest and cocking out her hip.

"It's just that I heard from Shika and Kiba that Ino has been bothering them a lot and badmouthing you all the time."

Panic bubbled up deep in her chest. Did Ino spill? Is she going to be in a lot of trouble now? Gods, she was, wasn't she? She should've just told Kakashi from the start. Shit, she could've gone today and spilt the beans, leave Madara to the Hokage and live her life without future mass murderers in her apartment.

Naruto put his hand on her shoulder, turning her to look at him. "What happened? Did you guys get in an argument? I haven't seen Ino this angry for a long time."

Her mouth suddenly was very dry. She licked her lips and averted her gaze towards the ground. "It's girl stuff, you wouldn't understand." A boulder dropped from her chest. Ino hadn't spilt, she was still angry, but she had kept her secret.

Naruto frowned, letting go of her. "Oh, okay. Well...uh, do you want to come with me to the new place that opened? What was it called again? I forgot, but anyway, everyone is going." His infectious smile was back.

Sakura rubbed her arm. Everyone meant everybody from Rookie Nine, Ino included and she didn't want to see the blonde. She wasn't ready to face her just yet. "I can't, Naruto. I'm not feeling too well, so I think I'll skip this time."

"But, Sakura-chan, we worked so hard to put this together, you need to come," he whined.

She raised her head suspiciously. "What do you mean? Were you planning to get me and Ino to make up?" She wouldn't put it past her friends to plan something like that, especially when Ino was acting up and bothering everyone around her.

He laughed sheepishly. "Oops, I shouldn't have said that you saw right through me, Sakura-chan. But yes, we want you guys to make up."

Sakura sighed, letting go of her arm. "I know you guys mean well, but seriously this isn't something that can be fixed in a day. Give Ino some time, she'll come around." She smiled sadly.

Naruto pouted. "Okay, I understand."

A long silence stretched between them. Naruto blankly stared at her. She fidgeted under his piercing stare.

Finally, he broke the awkward silence. "You can talk to me, Sakura, if anything is wrong. You know I'm your friend too and I'll be there for you no matter what."

Guilt ate at her. Ino had said almost the same thing and look how that turned out. Can she tell him? Naruto was known for not being able to hold a secret longer than ten minutes. She let a small grin slip across her lips. "I know, Naruto, thank you. Though this isn't something you can fix. I have to do it." It was best if he didn't know.

He eyed her with worry, reaching out with his hand, only to drop it no soon after. "If you say so. But be sure to come to me if you need anything, Sakura-chan." He grinned and this time when he went for a hug she didn't avoid him. He was warm and held on too tight like always, yet she drank up the small comfort it gave her.

Her stomach kept rolling in a ball of anxiety when he left. Did she make the right decision?

Xxx

Claustrophobia was eating at him from staying so long in the small and confined space Sakura called her apartment. He was nursing a massive headache just from the stuffy air inside. During the day he had left for a few hours to scout the outside again. This time the masses of people had been a lot more welcoming than before, almost like a reprieve.

He'd stocked up on some tools and other stuff without Sakura's knowing. As soon as he gets a solid lead on what to do he was going to high-tail out of the village. He didn't fit here, he was an outsider who couldn't even show his face in public. It was demeaning and he was tired of it.

Rubbing his burning eyes with the heel of his palm he closed the book. Insomnia was plaguing him again. Despite how tired he felt he couldn't keep his eyes shut for longer than five minutes.

Madara picked up another random book from the small, glass table and flipped it open. Annoyed he groaned at the smug face of Tobirama that stared back at him. It was the same book he'd shoved away last night. He raked a hand through his hair. Might as well finish the damn book, it's not like he didn't have the time to read it. He just wasn't sure how much he could handle the praising of Tobirama the writer was doing.

Surprisingly enough once he got far enough into the book it ended up being one of the most interesting books he'd read so far. Tobirama had been responsible for creating the shinobi Academy, the ranking system and the advanced shinobi troops called ANBU. What he also found interesting is that he'd created the Konoha Military Police Force, which primarily consisted of people from the Uchiha clan.

Not bad from the little weedling.

Nearing the end of the book finally information he'd been looking for came up. Tobirama had been known for dabbling into kinjutsu—practising it and creating it. That he hadn't been aware of. Pictures of tools needed for some of the kinjutsu and results of said jutsu marred the pages. One such picture caught his interest.

Pulling out the tag from his pocket he compared it to the picture of a tag in the book. He exhaled a short laugh. The luck.

His tag had different kanji on it, though the structure was similar. A description under the picture described the tag as a compliant tool for a teleporting jutsu. Didn't Sakura say that this was a sealing tag?

What was going on? Was Tobirama responsible for his situation?

* * *

 _Well, it's been a while, sorry about that, I don't really have a solid excuse. Anyway, this chapter was kind of hard to write, with it being a single location and consisting of only dialogue, but phew it's over. In the next chapter there's going to be some changes and finally the real adventure could start._

 _There's also some low key KibaIno in here, it's not that visible here, but yeah. I find Sai to be a boring paper cutout, plus if we're going for crack in this story then we're going full on crack. I couldn't make this DeiIno, since Deidei-chan is dead and all, so I went with the second best thing - KibaIno._

 _Lemme just say how absolutely blown away I am by the amount of responses I've received on this so far. So thank you Salinia, GwimGwim, , Tobiramamara, Myrddin Emrys The Third, Meanna NeKo, Nicholasha, Hakkuchi, loveitasakuxx, bloomsburry, Hana-Taisho, Synchronicity911, blacky1404. misssbehavin. And a special thanks to ollia and GemNika. I love your comments and I had fun talking to you guys._

 _idk when I'll update this again, but for now this is going to be my only multi-chapter project. I'll still write one-shots in between, since I need to focus on something else from time to time as well in order not to get sick of my multi-chapter projects._

 _Thanks for reading._


	4. The End Justifies The Means

_Hello, long time no see, eh? It's been over a year since I've touched this story and I'm sorry for that. It took me a while to fully figure out this story. Also, old readers, you might want to re-read the last chapter, I added some extra details that will be important to the story. All over I edited this story, cutting off almost 2k words which is bloody insane, I was such a bad over-writer._

 _Anyway, I know that my track record with MadaSaku isn't the brightest, to say the least. So in case anyone is worried or doubtful about how this story will end I strongly suggest listening to Forward Thinking by Marcus Warner. The tone, the lyrics perfectly reflect the tone of this fic. Nobody is going to die and I can assure you that both Sakura and Madara will have good endings._

* * *

In the morning she woke with a heavy head, mind reeling from the mess she had created. She almost didn't want to get out of her bed because that would mean that she'd have to face Madara again, she'd have to try and work through this mess. How she missed her days as a genin when her biggest worries were if her hair looked good and if her outfit was complimentary to her figure. The joys of being a dumb twelve year old.

Reluctantly Sakura rolled out of bed and started her usual morning routine.

Madara was where she last saw him – splayed on her couch, a book in his lap. Upon coming closer she snickered at his passed out form. His wild hair was a dishevelled mess, looking like he'd raked his hands through it multiple times and there was this cute little pout on his face. It was weirdly adorable. Sadly her leering didn't last long for he snapped his eyes open, levelling her with a glare.

Cringing she took a step back. Caught. Dang, maybe he wasn't sleeping as tightly as she'd assumed.

Without a word, he picked up the stuff he'd left on the table and trekked into her kitchen.

No soon after there was a solid knock on her door.

Puzzled she blinked. She was starting to be under the impression that Madara was an exceptional sensor or she simply was a really, really bad one.

The knocking continued and she rolled her eyes. Only one person ever knocked on her door and that was only because he was too lazy to notice her damn doorbell. Ripping her door open she wasn't surprised to see the spiky head of Shikamaru greet her. He looked like he'd recently rolled out of bed himself, clothes in slight disarray and his ponytail less tight than usual.

"The Hokage wants to see you." As always no pleasantries or even a simple hello.

Sakura cocked her hip out, leaning her hand against the door. "And it was important enough to send you out here?" He seemed to be in no distress, so nothing too serious must've happened, yet Kakashi had deigned it important enough to send his advisor to fetch her anyway. A simple message from an ANBU would've sufficed.

"Well, not too important, but Kakashi did want to make sure you don't run away from sending in your report for any longer," he drawled, focused on somewhere faraway as if this little errand to fetch her was a bore. Which it probably was, knowing him.

She let down her hands, cursing under her breath. "Sorry, I forgot. I'll head over right now and write the report up. Just lemme grab something to eat real quick." She let Shikamaru in and closed the door after him.

Hastily, running into her kitchen she snatched a granola bar from a cupboard. She spared a glance Madara's way, warning him silently to behave.

With a slight shake of his head, he rolled his eyes, pointedly ignoring her after that.

She ran back into her living room where Shikamaru had bided his time by staring at the painting near the door. "Okay, let's go."

Hopefully, this will be just a quick briefing report and she'll be able to go on her merry way. Kakashi didn't hold the same fondness over lectures about punctuality like Tsunade did, but knowing the rules the Elders have placed on him she wasn't holding her breath.

Xxx

By the time she reached the tower she was high-strung, hands clammy and her heartbeat against her ribcage almost feverishly. Even Shikamaru, who had been leisurely striding alongside her, had noticed her distress, though he didn't comment on it.

Her mind kept circling all of the possible things that could happen. Did Ino sell her out? Or somebody else found out about her treasonous actions? Shikamaru had said that she had been called in only to write up a late report, but that could've only been a guise to calmly get her trapped and get questioned by Ibiki. She shuddered at the thought.

Exhaling a large breath she pushed open the double doors of the Hokage office. Partially she expected to get ambushed and charged for treason, another part hoped that this was just a mundane reprimand for being tardy.

The early morning sun painted the office in soft hues, making it look almost homey if it weren't for the two darkly dressed ANBU guards standing in the corners. Kakashi's table wasn't as crowded as Tsunade had kept hers, yet it still was stacked with numerous scrolls and stacks of documents. Kakashi sat behind his large desk, eyes drawn downwards were a familiar orange book was peeking out from under the table.

Shikamaru left her, closing the door behind her, sealing her fate.

Stiffly she swallowed. _Be rational, Sakura._ Nothing had happened so far and unless she acted like a kid caught with the cookie jar in her hand Kakashi won't suspect a thing. She took the single chair across from the Hokage's desk and waited for him to notice her. He seemed to be in no rush, mounting her anxiety by the second.

Finally, he snapped the book shut and left it somewhere below the table before settling his dark eyes on her. "Glad you could make it." He smiled, his eyes crinkling in the familiar way she knew that he was genuinely happy to see her.

Sakura let a short breath escape her. "Well, yes, hard to go wayward when you have a chaperone."

The smile suddenly fell from his face. He brought out papers from some of the stacks near him. "I heard about your plight, Sakura. So I looked into it." Straight to business, how odd of him.

Confused she scooched her chair closer to take a peek at the papers.

"And I have a proposition for you."

She swallowed, hoping that this had nothing to do with Madara. "Yes?"

He sifted through some of the papers. "Tsunade at the start of her term as Hokage had been drafting a project that unfortunately never came to fruition. The project might need some adjustments to fit our current time, but I'm sure if you do some touch-ups you'll be able to present it to the elders. If it follows through then the project will be built from the village's budget."

Flabbergasted she stared, mouth opening and then closing. "Do you mean…?"

Kakashi smiled. "Yes, Sakura, you'll be able to get your own mental institution."

She exhaled a short laugh, releasing her hands from the edge of her seat. She hadn't even been aware she'd had such a death grip on the chair. "A whole institution," she echoed. And here she'd been hoping for a simple extension in the hospital. Meeting his eyes she smiled. "This is great news. When can I start?"

"Ah." He held up a finger, eyes flashing with mischief. "But there's a catch."

Sakura sunk in her chair. Of course, it was too good to be true. "What's the catch?"

"Since you were late in sending you mission briefing for three days," he gave her a pointed look and she sunk lower," which as you know could be found as withholding of information for nefarious reasons, I'm giving you a time limit. You have two weeks to finish the project before you're to present it before the village Elders."

A groan threatened to escape her lips. She could practically feel the headache that was bound to come. Still, she kept her mouth shut. Despite the short time limit, this was an opportunity too good to pass up.

"Also." He pulled a scroll from another stack on his table and presented it to her. "There's a new mission waiting for you. One named Mrs Tsubaki has specifically requested your medical expertise. You're to leave as soon as you can to Kiretsu in Iwa. I'm afraid it's quite urgent." He slapped the scroll on the table for her to take, looking far too pleased with himself.

This time she did groan. "You're evil. How am I supposed to finish all of this?"

"I'm sorry, Sakura, but I can't be showing favouritism towards you, Elders' orders." He sounded apologetic.

"I know, but don't you think this is going too far?" she hissed.

One day she'll hang the damn Elders by their toes. They hadn't been too pleased with Kakashi and his decision to pardon Sasuke of his crimes against the five villages and in turn, had been regulating some of his decision towards her and Naruto. Whenever she or Naruto got tardy with something or made a mistake they were punished. It was like the Elders put their ire towards Sasuke out on his teammates. It was hell.

Part of her suspected that in a twisted way Kakashi enjoyed watching them bend over backwards for some of the silly things he made them do, after all, he wasn't cruel enough to burden them with actual work. She hadn't seen the mission details yet, but she wouldn't be surprised if it was something inane and way below her skill level – his way of getting her free time away from the hospital to work on the project.

"I have faith in you." He placed all of the project documents in a folder and placed them near the scroll, giving her a reassuring smile.

She moved to pick up the documents, but he placed another piece of paper before her and a pen.

"Let's start with the easiest things first."

Begrudgingly she picked up the pen and started on the damn mission report that had gotten her into this mess in the first place.

Xxx

Her trek back to her apartment was sluggish, mind and body already tired despite waking up a few hours prior. Thankfully she had an evening shift in the hospital, so she maybe will be able to get a couple of hours of sleep and check out the documents Kakashi had given her, and prepare for the mission.

Sakura groaned in despair. This was going to be hell and this didn't even account in her troubles with Madara. How was she supposed to juggle all of this and keep her sanity? By the end, she'll be a patient in her own institution. And that is even if she'll get the Elders to approve of it.

She groaned again, clutching at her hair.

How did she land in this mess?

Fuck all of this. What she needed are a long bath and a stiff drink. After that, she'll try to sort everything out.

As soon as she set foot in her apartment she was met with Madara, a bag slung across his shoulder. She gaped for a moment. "Where are you going?"

He didn't look at her, intending to pass by her. "I'm leaving."

She stepped in his path. "You can't just leave!" This wasn't part of the plan, this wasn't what she had been risking her skin for.

Madara glared. "Watch me."

Sakura returned his glare and spread her arms, stopping him from moving forward. He was so close to her now that she had to crane her neck up to look him in the eye. "I can't let you do that."

He ignored her and not sparing a single glance towards her, pushed her aside like a little kid, opened the door and left without ceremony.

She stumbled into her supply closet's door, dazed. "You did not just... Argh! You insufferable asshole!" Cursing more, she ripped the door open and grabbed her emergency mission pack, stuffing the papers she got from Kakashi in and ran after him. God knows getting him back won't be a simple days excursion. He clearly had something planned up and whatever it was she isn't going to let him get away with it without butting in herself.

The village was bustling with activity and she barely could keep herself focused enough on his chakra signature. He must have used a henge sometime after running out the door for no chaos had broken out just yet. At least he had enough sense to do that.

She was blindly following his signature, jumping across the rooftops. Until it disappeared. Stunned, she stumbled. "Motherfucker!" He covered his signature. She took in her surroundings – he had been running near the wall, but not going over it or through it just yet. Odd. There weren't particularly a lot of guards near the wall during this time of day, so he must not be looking for the shortest way out unless he had a specific direction he was heading towards.

Sakura followed the general direction he was heading towards while mapping the layout of the villages in her head. The most likely direction was…Ame. Fuck.

Pushing thoughts of what that might entail aside, Sakura jumped across the buildings and landed on the wall. She paid no mind to the confused guard below her and set out into the woods. Her mind was a mess, she didn't know what to think, didn't even consider if running after him might be the best choice.

Through the haze of her mind, she glanced a wisp of someone disappearing up into the treetops.

She didn't think, just grit her teeth and set after him. He might have hidden his signature, but he's underestimating of how good of a tracker she could be if she set her mind to it.

Which after two hours appeared to be not so great.

She'd lost his trail multiple times, but each time there was a small hint that brought her back on to it.

He was faster than her and clearly had the upper hand, yet she still managed to be just a little bit behind him each time. Sakura was under the impression that he was toying with her, laughing at her feeble attempt to track him. It irritated her that he was playing her like this, messing with her. Yet it confused her. He hadn't tried to ditch her completely. Why?

It was nearing four hours of their little game and exhaustion was creeping up on her. Pushing out insane speeds like this wasn't what she was used to. The trees were a blur to her eyes, passing by too fast to catch any detail. Wind whipped her face and there was a steady trail of sweat trickling down her back. She didn't stop. She could sense his signature again.

Her foot missed the next branch and she fell from the treetops. She scraped her limbs and maybe even bruised her ribs on the way down, landing heavily on the ground. Sakura wheezed, trying to catch her breath and ignore how all of her bruises pulsed with pain. She scrunched her eyes shut in tears. Fuck, this was a mess. Now she's gonna lose him for good.

Through blurry eyes, up in the treetops, there was a shadow. Two red dots shined predominantly, watching her.

Sakura rolled on her side groaning, the air smelling distinctly of something fleshy. She was in shock from just one stupid fall. A string of curses fell past her lips and she concentrated her chakra to soothe her body.

"I wouldn't advise you to follow me." His tone was cold, almost bored.

Her fingers dug into the earth and she raised her head to meet his red, blazing stare. "Well, you haven't been doing a good job in ditching me, so something tells me that you might not want me gone." Her voice sounded throaty, strained with exertion.

Madara didn't reply, giving her a look of warning instead.

She huffed and grimaced in pain when she straightened herself back on her feet. "Let's just be reasonable here." She cleaned her hands from the dirt, eyeing his stiff posture warily. "You want to go back. I want you to go back. Why can't we just work together and it'll make the process faster?"

His eyes trailed over her body for a long minute and she had to bite back a shiver. The red of his sharingan was unsettling. "Because you have the incessant need to tell me what to do."

Sakura sighed. It sometimes felt like she was dealing with a moody teenager when talking to him. It did make her wonder how old he actually was. Judging by his face, maybe mid-twenties, but the frown could be making him look older. "Well, I'm right, aren't I? And I'm not telling, I'm suggesting." She opened her arms, palms up in a gesture of honesty.

He didn't answer for a long time and she feared that he was going to tell her to get lost, just like Sasuke had done all those years ago. "Fine."

She opened her mouth to argue, to plead automatically until what he had said registered in her brain. "Wait, really?"

Madara took a step forward, scrunching his eyebrows in confusion. "You want to fight about it?"

Sakura stepped back, raising her hands in surrender. "N-no, please no fighting. I'm just surprised is all." Giving his earlier disposition she'd expected for him to put up more of a fight about it, treat her like a nuisance and eventually ditch her for good. Maybe she was wrong to immediately compare him to Sasuke. The aloof coldness had initially made her make the comparison, yet it was much different from how Sasuke presented it – much more intimidating, making her feel small and insignificant.

He ignored her and turned on his heel, walking into the forest. It was her cue to follow, a silent acceptance to her presence in his trip.

Xxx

An hour in their trek Sakura had suggested making camp and he had begrudgingly agreed. It was a lot earlier than he would have settled down normally, but she was clearly in pain and struggling just to keep up with his pace. Her fall from the tree had looked painful, especially considering that she hadn't had enough chakra to hold up her durability. It had been a complete surprise to him, he hadn't accounted for the fact that she would push herself so far in the chase as to lose her sense of surrounding.

As soon as he had run out of her place he had known that she would run after him and he had accepted that. He'd ran to get out of her arguing in the first place if just to speed up the process. And it had been fun watching her try to follow him, her brows creasing in anger each time she'd lost the trail. A competent survivalist she was not, though determined and stubborn, he had to give her that.

Said kunoichi should've been sleeping by now, getting back her strength. Yet true to her stubbornness she was still awake, sifting through a scroll and bunch of papers, the same crease between her brows.

It had gotten dark, the only light from the small fire he'd made, casting soft hues around their makeshift campsite. Night birds were singing in the distance and the wind was rustling the leaves of the trees.

He'd missed this kind of serene atmosphere – the fresh outdoors, nature away from masses of people. It was so peaceful that he had nearly nodded off at one point, exhaustion and lack of sleep finally catching up to him.

If there's anything he'd take away from this bizarre experience is that he did not like large crowds and confined spaces for extended periods of time, especially if combined. It made him feel like he'd been imprisoned and there was nothing worse than lack of freedom to Madara Uchiha.

"Do I have something on my face?" Sakura's droll voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"Why would you say that?"

She frowned, running a hand through her tousled hair, hand shaking slightly. "You've been staring at me for the past then minutes."

Oh well, that was embarrassing. "I just got lost in thought, don't read into it."

Sceptically she eyed him before returning to her work, writing something on the papers. She'd been meticulously shuffling with those papers for a while, distress was written all over her face. He was curious to know what had gotten her in such a bunch but ultimately didn't care enough to actually ask. He didn't need her problems cluttering his mind.

Sakura hummed, not raising her eyes from her work. "Can I know where are we headed?"

He supposed it was only fair that she knew lest she make her own ludicrous assumptions. "Iwagakure."

She stilled, looking his way. "Why there?"

Absent-mindedly he picked up a stick to fiddle the fire with, focusing on the amber flames. "One of the books you brought back," he started, briefly glancing at her reaction, "it described a kinjutsu that could allow a shinobi to travel large distances, even jump time in some instances. Said jutsu is now in Iwa due to an exchange between Konoha that had been made in hopes to mend the declining relationship between the two villages."

Sakura was quiet for a while, the crackling of the fire filling the silence. "I guess that's good. Why did you have to run off like that though? You could've just said that you found a lead and at least given me more time to prepare."

He sneered. "I don't have the time to wait for you. The longer I stay here the bigger the possibility of some buffoon to ruin all of my projects and for Tobirama to slither his way into my position like the little snake he is."

"You don't trust people much."

It was a simple observation, yet the statement still caught him off guard. She was right, of course. These days he didn't know who to trust, everyone seemed to have an agenda, something they needed, something to prove. He barely extended the courtesy of trust to Hashirama and even then it was only because of their shared goal and the example he needed to uphold to his people.

"I understand, though. It must've been hard to grow up during war times and now trying to work with someone who you'd considered your enemy your whole life must be troubling." Her gaze was back to her papers, scrawling something down.

She was being really casual about this, commenting on his life. He doubted she understood and it showed in her mannerisms, her life, her routine. She had no idea how hard it was, how hard it was to lose family due to war. How it felt to spend countless days, months, years on the run, never having a solid home. How it felt to have been on a constant lookout for enemies, never having a safe space.

"What are you trying to pull?" Unbeknownst to him, he had clenched his hands in his pants, body stiff.

"I'm just trying to be nice. I don't need to have a scheme to show a little bit of kindness," she said sardonically, throwing him an incredulous glance.

Madara exhaled, releasing his grip. "Why now?"

She shrugged. "If we're going to travel together it's better if we're on the same page. I mean, I still don't particularly like you, but I can put aside my antipathies to reach a common goal."

A common goal, huh? "To change my mind about certain actions I'm to make? Because I don't remember agreeing to that."

Sakura flinched, burying her nose deeper in her papers. "I-I mean, get you back to your time."

He snorted. "Sure and I'm daft enough to believe you."

Suddenly, she threw everything that was in her lap aside, eyes blazing in anger. "Y'know what, okay! I do want to change some things. You were an awful decision-maker." She pointed an accusing finger his way. "And like it or not, you were an important part of Konoha's history. You changed things, you caused people grief and ultimately you got a head so huge that you thought that you could play God. So if there's just a single thing of all of the fuckups you made I can change I'll take it." She exhaled deeply through her nose. "I'm sure you're smart enough not to step on the same rake twice now that you know what you're going to mess up." She sneered at him mockingly.

Blankly he stared her down and she returned the gesture.

Sakura broke the contact first, picking her papers back up. "Just take this as your chance to self-reflect. I'm not asking you to kiss Tobirama's feet, all I'm asking is to just think about your actions and how they might affect others."

Madara wanted to reprimand her, to dismiss her attempts to teach him how to live, but that would be foolish. She was right – this was an opportunity to avoid the mistakes his future self made. If only he knew what had pushed him to such extremes in the first place. It was easy for Sakura to lecture him like this, it was harder to figure out where the problem actually laid.

He couldn't figure out how his actions might affect anything that drastically. He had the villages' best interests in mind. As much as he loved the battle, the adrenaline rush it gave him it was time to stop and move on from the past. He wasn't even sure why the Uchiha and Senju were fighting in the first place anymore, his father never being too specific on the reason. It was asinine. The future generations deserved better, they deserved a safe place, a place to call home.

Yet he was the one who had compromised everything. What a charming example he turned out to be.

The fire was dimming, so he threw in another piece of wood in it, watching as orange embers flew up in the sky. "Was it my fault?"

Sakura paused her writing to glance at him. "You're going to need to be more specific."

He clenched his eyes shut, not wanting to accept the current reality. "The massacre?"

She was quiet for a while. "I'm not sure. It was a complicated situation that had roots trailing back to Nidaime-sama's time as Hokage."

He wanted to snort at her use of honorific to address Tobirama again. He should've known that the little weedling was in some way responsible for his clan's untimely demise. Still, it felt a little better to know that it wasn't entirely his fault.

Sakura broke the elongated silence. "Let's try to get some shut-eye, it's getting late." She cast a sympathetic glance his way, putting away her stuff and pulling out a sleeping roll.

Madara nodded grimly, eyes pinned to the crackling fire, a heavy weight on his chest.

* * *

 _All over the story will have 12 chapters and it's gonna be a relatively slow burn. I know that Sakura and Madara are still hostile, but I promise that it will change and Madara will loosen up in no time. Anyway, tell me what you think._


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